A note of surrender from the Vatican. It's a far cry from the Pope's speech at Regensburg, and a far cry from earlier publications in the same magazine.
"Jihad Finds a Strange Advocate: 'La Civiltà Cattolica,'" by Sandro Magister in Chiesa, with thanks to Michael Rose:
ROMA, November 8, 2006 – The recent October edition of “La Civiltà Cattolica” – the authoritative magazine of the Rome Jesuits printed with the supervision and authorization of the Vatican authorities – opens with a jaw-dropping editorial on Islam.The editorial furnishes a very detailed and alarming description of fundamentalist and terrorist Islam, behind which “there are great and powerful Islamic states”: an Islam aiming at the conquest of the world and fostered by violence “for the cause of Allah.”
But it does this without even the slightest note of criticism of this nexus of violence and faith.
And it is as if this nexus were an inescapable reality, against which the West and the Church should do little or nothing: little at the practical level – it’s enough to look over the scant measures against terrorism that are recommended – and nothing at the theoretical level.
Above all, it is as if Benedict XVI hadn’t even delivered, last September 12, his lecture in Regensburg.
In it, pope Joseph Ratzinger aimed precisely at liberating the faith – every faith – from ties to violence, and at uniting it indissolubly with reason instead: the objective is a positive and constructive dialogue between Christianity and other cultures and religions, including Islam.
But the editorial in “La Civiltà Cattolica,” for its part, seems like a manifesto of multicultural theories. Islam is the way it is, and it must be accepted as such.
Read it all.
Novy,
I don't know what anti-semitic rock you climbed out from under but your views are ridiculous. To view the whole prism of history through the protocols means that you are the one who has been brainwashed. Get off the line you Big DOPE!
Is the Vatican proposing to update the New Testament with a chapter on Muhammed advocating for sharia rule of the ever expanding caliphate - simply turn the other cheek and all?
INSANITY!
Here again, we see the Catholic Church not willing to fight, but to appease. But then again, Italy is not willing to fight, either. They are the ones that tried to bring Fallaci to trial for insulting islam. The Catholic Church, the Vatican, is first and foremost, a product of Italy. So goes Italy, so goes the Church.
This ranks right up there with John Paul kissing the quaran and declaring it a "holy" book when he visited Jerusalem.
I gather the Roman Church will not be calling for crusades to rescue anyone this time around, least of all Israel.
This can't be good, but no doubt many apologists like the Bush supports, will twist and turn and try to say that it is -- when it isn't.
After reading the article about the editorial (and not the editorial itself), it seems to me as if the editorial writer was speaking carefully without using weighted language.
I think it gives a good, general overview of the Muslim mindset and world view: "we are victims, we’ve been humiliated, everything belongs to us, if you fight us in any way we’re obliged to die for our religion and do so gladly".
As I understand its conclusions:
1. Be good Christians and approach with a Christian attitude.
2. Try not to p*** them off by fighting them militarily. Try to find a solution to the Israel problem but keep in mind that the Muslims think it belongs to them for all eternity and will do anything to get it, including blowing themselves up, if it means killing some Jews, too.
3. Forget trying to make any of their countries democracies: they don’t want democracy because it’s against their god. They want sharia law because they believe those laws were given to them directly by their god . If and when they want democracy, they’ll do it for themselves.
4. Wherever possible, use police and intelligence forces to combat militant Islam.
5. Hit them where it hurts: cut off their funding.
Sad indeed.
Islam should be accepted as it is. We accept the AIDs virus as it is too. That doesn't mean we do nothing to stop it or roll back its progress.
Seeing the enemy as he truly is is almost important as seeing yourself for what you truly are. I hope that's the intent here.
"Here again, we see the Catholic Church not willing to fight, but to appease"
from a post above.
This is not the Catholic Church but the Jesuits, a declining order that has been infected by liberalism for years. The Jesuits' loyalty to the Vatican is virtually zero.
Read the 2004 article "The Jesuits Are Too Liberal" by Raymond D. Aumack to see how far from Catholic teaching this organization is:
http://www.americamagazine.org/gettext.cfm?articleTypeID=9&textID=3614&issueID=486
This article is in a Jesuit magazine called "America". One of Benedict XVI's first act was to force its editor, Thomas Reese, to resign. According to the Wikipedia entry on the Jesuits: "Within the Catholic Church, some Jesuits are criticized by some parties for being overly liberal and deviating substantially from official Church teaching and papal directives, especially on such issues as abortion, priestly celibacy, homosexuality, and liberation theology. Pope Benedict XVI, like his predecessor John Paul II, has been particularly critical of the order."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Jesus
So this organization, fallen so far from its original orthodoxy has waged constant war against the Pope. After B16's firm statements of truth about Islam, it is not surprising that this would be their tactic.
...the editorial in “La Civiltà Cattolica” specifies that the ideology described above “is not shared by all Muslims, and not even by the great majority of them.”
So why the need to “create bonds of friendship and collaboration [with Islam] in order to solve today’s great problems and establish a serene and trusting intercultural dialogue”, and with whom do we need to "create" these "bonds" -- with the terrorists & jihadists who are not "even" of the "great majority"?
The incoherent mush of PC Leftism at its finest.
"Of course Lonewolf, I speak blasphemy... And they accused another of that charge too, because he said: I am The Way, The Truth, , and The Life, no one comes to the Father except through me. They did not disappear, they did not fade away, they are still with us."
Yeah...blah blah blah. You're right up there with Jesus dude.
Seriously, is there anyway to *plonk" this goob so I don't have to read his babbling? Talk about fiddling while Rome burns. Tilting at long discredited conspiracy windmills while the world around him goes to hell in a handcart. No wonder we're in the shape we're in.
P.S. Thanks for the fantastic and informative website(s). I send these links to all of my "truth challenged" friends who are under the thrall of the network talking heads. The info here has helped countless friends wake up and smell the jihad coffee.
Novy - I smell protocols.
If I'm not mistaken, Georgetown University continues to be run by the Jesuit order. Coincidence?
If I'm not mistaken, Georgetown University continues to be run by the Jesuit order. Coincidence?
Posted by: MP at November 8, 2006 01:19 PM
Hmm, I seem to recall an article from a couple of weeks ago about some Saudi prince giving money to set up some sort of center for understanding at a university. This wouldn't happen to be that university by any chance?
ISLAMSFORLOSERS - You, Sir, are correct. First Washington, D.C., now Rome! Could something be rotten in the Society of Jesus?
The Jesuits have been renegades in the Church since the 1960's. Unfortunately they are also excellent scholars and teachers and they control many Catholic universities where they can propogate their heresies. I should mention that there are a few good, faithful Jesuits still out there (Fr. Joseph Fessio, Fr. Mitch Pacwa, Cardinal Avery Dulles, Fr. Robert Spitzer...).
In Catholic circles, we scoff at their acronym, "SJ", which is supposed to mean "Society of Jesues". It's become apparent to us that it really means "Society of Judas".
Ditto on Atheling's Posting (Catholic myself and I hate to say it, but the Society of Jesus has gone over to the dark side if you catch my drift.)
Tunisia Catholic bishops urge dialogue with Muslims
Ummah News Links
The Jesuits scare me to death every time I read about them.
I went to a Jesuit university...there were some old-timers who were orthodox, but the younger ones? Buggery, liberation theology, and outright apostasy in liberal doses.
The article is beneath contempt, but it is no surprize. Church politics can only be described as "Byzantine" in the worst sense of the word and Benedict XVI faces deep opposition in all sorts of quarters. Some are analyzed here:
http://www.chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=44944&eng=y
http://www.chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=46410&eng=y
http://www.chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=46686&eng=y
This is just another current of anti-Ratzinger obstructionism. Unfortunately, Christian sympathy for Islam is nothing new and certain currents of Christian theology in the ancient Near East were probably even among Islam's precursors, possibly going back as far as the Christian response to the nationalist cause in the Jewish wars of Roman antiquity, so it should be no surprize that Christian collaboration with Islamic armies of conquest has always been a part of Islam's winning strategy, as when the treason of Seville's bishop opened the gates to conquest of Spain. Let's hope these Jesuits don't end up doing the same thing here.
Benedict has so far been very effective in sidelining his opponents, and I'm convinced his response to Islam has been developing in the right direction, and at the right pace, at Regensberg, and even before it going back at least as far as World Youth Day in Cologne, not to mention his position on Islam before his election as Pope, in spite of the doubts of some posters. My fear though is that given his age, he might soon lose the fire in the belly. It remains to be seen whether he'll win, and how long he can hold out.
Conscientious Catholics around the world have to show their support for his position loud and clear, and demand that groups like the Rome Jesuits either change their tune or shut the hell up. Shame them into silence, complain to higher ecclesiastical authorities and their superiors and hit them in the pocketbook if you have the opportunity!
August22:
There's no room for non-Catholics to be smug or self-righteous about this. You're all just as bad as we are. Take note of the attitude of the Lutheran bishop of the region in this recent story.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2434625,00.html
And who can forget this fine, inspirational piece of Anglican dhimmitude:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/012823.php#comments
This barely scratches the surface of what's going on in Christian non-Catholic circles.
And by the way, it was not Italy that made the Church. Quite the other way around in fact. Not only Italy, in fact, but modern Europe. What a shame that Europe today doesn't have the sense to understand this and to embrace her Christian heritage with respect and gratitude. And your comment above resides on the thin edge of the wedge that eventually divided Europe from this heritage, with today's lamentable results.
"... this place is a Zionist front. Oh, but most here seem to think "Zionism" is some myth invented by the Islamics, or some benevolent ideology friendly to Christians. Hahahaha!! The "Christian"-Zionists don't have a clue how they've been corrupted and manipulated. They thirst for blood and war and Armageddon".
Posted by Novy Mir
Where do these nuts come from?
atheling wrote:
The Jesuits have been renegades in the Church since the 1960's. Unfortunately they are also excellent scholars and teachers and they control many Catholic universities where they can propogate their heresies. I should mention that there are a few good, faithful Jesuits still out there (Fr. Joseph Fessio, Fr. Mitch Pacwa, Cardinal Avery Dulles, Fr. Robert Spitzer...).
In Catholic circles, we scoff at their acronym, "SJ", which is supposed to mean "Society of Jesues". It's become apparent to us that it really means "Society of Judas".
***********************
Unfortunately, I must strongly agree with atheling's comments about the Jesuits. It used to be that "S.J." after an author's or teacher's name was like a "Sterling" or "24K" hallmark on a piece of fine jewelry. Now, association of the Jesuits with an article or book on Catholic doctrine or religion in general is like buying a bag of spinach during the e. coli scare -- you had no idea whether or not it was actually tainted, so unless you had the facilities and equipment for bacteriological testing, the safest bet was to just chuck it into the garbage.
Novy Mir:
You characterized this site above as a "Zionist front" and that is absurd - a typical example of the kind of paranoia which people spouting anti-Jewish polemics engage in routinely. Many of those who post here probably ARE Zionists or their sympathizers, but that does not prove your point. In any case the label "Zionist" is largely meaningless, since there are many different kinds of "Zionists", starting with the major differentiation among them, namely the religious Zionists in the one camp, and the older Zionist movement, secular and/or atheistic in the other, and within these two streams there are myriad smaller groups committed to a variety of different ideologies and programs, starting from a variety of different premises.
I am not a Zionist. I support the right of the State of Israel to exist within secure borders as defined by the United Nations in 1948 because this was decided by the closest thing available to an authority representing the consensus of the international community, and it was a resonable decision at the gime given the balance of arguments about how to resolve the problem of providing permanent security for the Jewish people. I do not as some of the "Christian Zionists" you refer to see the existence of the State of Israel as the fulfillment of "prophecy". It is entirely a historical - not an eschatological reality - of secular, not divine origin, and having nothing whatever to do with the "endtimes" or any other such nonsense. Based on the variety of people who post on Jihadwatch I would guess that many others have similar views, so your characterization of the site and its posters as naive "Zionists" is incorrect.
That said, do not assume you can resolve the threat to the safety of the world by projecting it onto the Jews and throwing Israel to the wolves. Any objective and honest reading of history shows that few, if any, people have ever been so unjustly targetted and oppressed as the Jews have. Such scapegoating of another to appease a viscious enemy that seeks your destruction as much as that of the people you scapegoat is the worst form of cowardly manipulation. Worse than mere surrender, it represents the most dehumanizing face of defeat - moral debasement and enslavement.
Perhaps it would have been fairer if the state of Israel had been established in Europe as some suggest since the persecutions that directly drove the Zionist cause, including the holocaust, occurred in Europe. But this would not have deflected the anger and rage that is stalking the world now. The program of Islamic expansion of the current era was outlined in the 1920s by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, long before the creation of the State of Israel, and was only delayed by the events of World War II and the Cold War. The great sin that, in the eyes of today's Islamic extremists, we must all pay the price for (to paraphrase in the language you use), is that we exist at all and will not die quickly enough to bring the entire world to the abject state of submission that the very name "Islam" demands. The existence of Israel is a mere convenient pretext for carrying out their campaign to punish us for this grave offence against their "religion". We are dealing with an endlessly expansionist and supremacist movement driven by a religious text that canonizes violence, war and conquest of the entire world and the imposition of a religion of endless repression.
If the society into which the Zionist movement introduced its Jewish emigrants had had strong institutions such as clearly defined states operating on the basis of a rule of law that embodied the notion of the sovereignty of the state within its borders, the Zionists would never have been able to achieve their goals and the international community would never have approved it. That such conditions did not exist is directly attributable to the fact that nearly 1400 years of Islamic repression, including the crude Turkish millet system that had been enforced by its Ottoman Muslim overlords until the end of their misrule over the region finally brought about by the British League of Nations mandate. Given the manner in which such rulers had previously run things, including their habit of routine mass deportations, and the fatalism with which such outcomes were always acceptable as the will of Allah, this displacement of a population could have been expected to be assimilated like any other. That it was not is due not to some exalted principle like justice, human rights, or the self-determination of peoples, but to nothing more than the bigotry inculcated by Islam, whereby the fact that the newcomers were non-Muslims and the lands they occupied thereby reverted to non-Muslm rule - something intolerable according to the Koranic mandate that Islam must never contract, but only expand until it subjugates the entire world.
That a secular state founded on the democratic values developed in the West - namely Israel - now confronts the Ummah on some of its most "sacred" territory is not only fit punishment for the harassment it brought to the entire continent of Europe from Spain to the Balkans for nearly 1000 years and for the destruction of Christendom in the Middle East and North Africa, and for the sheer brutality and violence by which alone it took those lands in the first place, but something people who love freedom and are determined to resist the oppressive aggression of Islamic fundamentalism and expansionism, rightly welcome and embrace. If Islam was a force for peace and justice, it could have long ago resolved the problem of its relations with the Jewish state and the plight of the Palestinians. If you disagree with my take on history or with the views of the site's sponsors or the majority of its readers you are welcome to say so with reasoned arguments but for God's sake either quit picking on the Jews with these ridiculous vauge, unfounded conspiracy allegations or don't be surprized if you get negative reactions from the rest of us. The purpose of this site is to monitor global Islamic Jihad, not "Zionist plotting". There are other blogs available if you want to do that.